Please make a donation to support Gunter's Space Page.
Thank you very much for visiting Gunter's Space Page. I hope that this site is useful and informative for you.
If you appreciate the information provided on this site, please consider supporting my work by making a simple and secure donation via PayPal. Please help to run the website and keep everything free of charge. Thank you very much.

AMSAT P2D (Phase 2D, AO 8, AMSAT-OSCAR 8)

AMSAT P2D (OSCAR 8, also known as Phase 2D) was a radio amateur satellite built by radio amateurs in the U.S., Canada, Germany and Japan. The primary mission was to provide an educational tool and amateur communications.

AMSAT P2D was a box shaped satellite with dimensions 380 × 380 × 330 mm and weighs 27.2 kg. Power was provided by solar cells mounted on the sides of the satellite. It was constructed using many of the parts left over from the AMSAT P2B (OSCAR-7) project.

The satellite was launched on the 5 March 1978 at 1754UTC on a Delta-2910 rocket as a piggy-back payload together with Landsat 3 and PIX 1 from Vandenberg AFB into a 903 × 917 km orbit with an inclination of 98.99°. The satellite operated until the battery finally failed in the middle of 1983.